Title: To Catch a Mord'Sith
Author: yummypumpkins
Pairing: Cara/Kahlan
Rating: ehh, lets PG-13 this one, it's heavy with the flirty talk.
Warnings: Not much point to it. A little smut, a little crack - let's call it smack!
Disclaimer: Anything you recognize is owned by someone great and powerful, like ABC/Disney or Terry Goodkind, and not by someone small and meek like me. Also, this is unbetaed, so all mistakes are my own- don't laugh, I'm sensitive.
A/N: So, I've been meaning to contribute something for a while, just haven't been able to because of…*looks over shoulder* contracts. Currently I am in between them so it's all good, and therefore I post for you this. It sprung from one of my comments in the 101 Uses for an Agiel posting.
Kahlan was becoming too bold. Cara saw this as a crack in her own defenses. Boundaries needed to be established, because the confessor had gone too far this time. She could tolerate the soft brushes of Kahlan's hand while they walked side by side. She was warming up to the fact that when she woke in the morning two strong, yet slender arms were wrapped snuggly around her. And then there were the private, heated moments they shared away from camp or in a room above a tavern – Cara encouraged those as often as possible actually. But this? This was Kahlan taking advantage of Cara's slipping control over her feelings for the other woman. Romantic entanglements or not, one should always fear taking a Mord'Sith's agiel.
It had happened that morning. Cara had excused herself to bathe while Richard was keeping Kahlan amused with teaching her rope tricks and snare traps, and while the wizard helped clean up the camp, which really meant he was finishing off what was left of breakfast. It was a rather simple day of rest one very much like all the others that forever slowed them down in their campaign to complete the most current quest they were carrying out – find the thing, something, something, save the world – the usual.
The Mord'Sith stalked through the woods to – what Richard claimed to be – a lake that they were camping near the edge of. Truth of the matter was it wasn't much of a lake, Cara had spit pools of blood larger, but the water was cool and clear so it would suffice. Stripped out of her protective shell, the water was barely up to her knees when Cara heard soft, but intruding footsteps cleaving through the forest. Cara could feel the icy blue eye roaming over her naked back and she couldn't fight the smile that was over taking her. Cara, while appreciating Kahlan's voyeuristic tendencies, preferred the physical aspect of pleasure. It had been several days since they were alone, and water had a way of highlighting the taste of Kahlan's skin. Cara slipped deeper into the water, moving as teasingly slow as she could manage, hoping to draw the confessor in after her. Hearing the soft padding of steps on the sand coming closer, Cara smiled in triumph and dipped below the surface of the water to wet her hair and wait like a hungry predator. And wait she did until finally she was forced to surface for a gulp of fresh air.
"Kahlan, I don't understand this pleasure you get from making me wait – Kahlan?" When Cara swept her blond hair away from her eyes, to her great dismay, she saw no naked, wet confessor, nor even a dry, clothed confessor. No one, just two sets of footprints in the sand, one leading toward her discarded red leather and one away back into the woods. Kahlan had come and gone, and had taken Cara's agiel belt with her.
In a flourish of twisting torso, pumping legs, and flung water, Cara tore through the tiny lake and back to shore. With great effort and several curses she tugged her leather shell over her dripping limbs and stomped off into the woods after her foolhardy confessor and absconded with agiels.
It didn't take long to find, set in the middle of a ring of trees; a near to too perfect spot. One would have to be blind to miss it, and stupid not to see it for what it was. She just wanted her agile belt back, and didn't have time to consider Kahlan's poor attempts at clever traps, if that thing could be considered clever. If this was what Richard had taught Kahlan, then Kahlan should thank the Creator that most small animals were below the intelligence level of the average Mord'Sith. A wooden fruit crate propped at an angle by a forked stick with a length of string attached hardly counted as strategic ingenuity. The only part of the so called trap that made any sense was the bait – the agiels.
Cara approached the contraption without apprehension and with an exaggerated roll of her eyes. She figured Kahlan was watching, most likely from behind the tree to which the length of string ran behind, so she put her annoyance on display.
"Oh yes, so very cleaver, Confessor. A box with a string. I don't know whether I'm more insulted by the fact you think this would fool me, or by having you think I could fit in that." Cara's height was a touchy subject, and another example of Kahlan becoming too comfortable with the Mord'Sith.
With a grumble of weak obscenities, and half hearted, empty threats of not sharing a bed for a week, Cara kicked the wooded box away from her agiels. Unfortunately, with all the grumbling and cursing Cara failed to see the larger threat and it was only when she heard the thick snap of a tree limb and the twang of rope did she realize her mistake. It was in half a turn that her right foot was taken out from under her and she was pulled forward and up. A whoosh of air and one gasp filled with embarrassing surprise later, Cara found herself, most regrettably, swinging upside down.
Flitting giggles accompanied prideful footsteps across the pine needled and moss carpeted forest floor, those were followed by a firm brush of fingers across the supple leather covering Cara's backside, adding the slightest spin to her steady swing.
If it were anyone else, their neck would have been broken by now. If it were anyone else, her agiels wouldn't have been taken and she'd be using them to teach a rather lengthy and hard lesson. But instead of peeling the flesh from the body of her tormentor, Cara hung upside down from a tree like a D'Haran holiday ornament, burning with the knowledge that Kahlan had bested her.
"I take it Richard's lessons went well?" Cara folded her arms over her breasts in an effort to keep them from slipping any further out of her leather – sometimes she cursed the day she cut that slit so damn low – and to appear calm and unbothered.
Kahlan dropped herself down in front of Cara, crossing her legs. Cara's eyes were instantly drawn to the patch of ivory skin that exposed itself to her from between dark skirt and tall boot.
"I honestly didn't think it would work, but then again, Richard said a trap is only as good its bait."
"Beginner's luck."
"Good bait. If I can master catching something on such a grand scale, then I should have no problem snaring something impossibly tiny, like a chipmunk."
Cara squeezed her eyes shut, they felt like they were beginning to swell either from the blood rushing to her head, or from Kahlan's bothersome facetiousness.
"I have an itching feeling that you are calling me a giant chipmunk."
Kahlan smiled her standard world stopping smile and pinched Cara's cheek. "You are adorable with your cheeks all puffy like that."
Since Cara couldn't easily duck and run from the overtly antagonizing touch she slapped at Kahlan's hand trying to detach her. "I am not adorable! And my cheeks aren't puffy with cuteness; they're puffy with the blood that is rushing to my head."
"Someone's cranky."
"Cranky? Kahlan I'm-" Cara was cut off when Kahlan grabbed her collar and pulled her forward into a soft pecking kiss.
"What?" And another kiss.
"Stop-"
"You're-"
"Making-"
"Diff-"
"Kahlan!" Cara shouted right into her lover's mouth.
"What?" Kahlan groaned in mock impatience.
"You're making it difficult for me to reprimand you for your ridiculous behavior and frivolous actions regarding me."
"Oh and suddenly you're the etiquette teacher to the highest moral authority in the Midlands? If I recall just last week you were the one encouraging me to-" This time Cara was the one cutting off sentences half spoken, her methods were not as tactful, or cutesy as Kahlan's, but she found sticking her fingers in someone's mouth quieted them long enough for her to get her words out.
"I find this position to be a hindrance to serious discussions. Let me down." Cara removed her fingers from Kahlan's mouth in preparation to be let down.
With her mouth no longer occupied by a fist of red leather, Kahlan finished her sentence. "Before I untie you let me finish. I was saying that you were encouraging me to be more adventurous… romantically."
"I believe I used the word sexually."
"Yes, well, that brings me to why I'm not going to let you down just yet. It's rare that I get to see a fantasy of mine play out in front of me instead of in my dreams."
"You dream of strung up like a side of beef?"
"More like a sweet summer fruit, ripe and ready to be picked and devoured."
Both Cara's eyebrows rose in interest. "Go on."
As Kahlan stood she ran her finger up Cara's sides, both hands meeting where her agiel belt should be resting. Cara took in a shaky breath when she felt finger tips maneuver themselves under the waist of her pants and slowly untuck her top.
"I always liked dark, red, cherries," Kahlan purred as she rolled Cara's leather down, exposing her abdomen. "I would bite into them just the tiniest bit, just enough to get a hold of that lustrous outer skin and peel it away. It might seem a little tedious but being rewarded with the soft, sweet flesh underneath was always well worth it."
Soon enough Cara forgot all about her belt, the silly trap, and the dizziness building up inside of her, because now her blood was pumping for an entirely different reason.
"Oh dear Spirits," was all the Mord'Sith could hoarse out when Kahlan's nimble and determined fingers began undoing the laces at her hips.
Kahlan was very good at testing boundaries, and occasionally Cara saw fit to allow it.